


Friday

by anticyclone



Category: Cainsville - Kelley Armstrong
Genre: Groundhog Day, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 08:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6604645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was Friday yesterday. It's Friday today. And unless Gabriel can figure out what he's doing wrong, it looks like it's going to be Friday tomorrow, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myrifique](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrifique/gifts).



Gabriel was not used to sitting in the back seat.

By the time he came out of the rest stop, though, Olivia was in the driver's seat and Ricky was beside her.

A glare on the windshield hid their faces from his view. He could tell that the two of them were bent over a map. Neither of them noticed his approach. He opened the back door with deliberate slowness, but the conversation in the front seat flowed on uninterrupted even as he settled down.

"It's an hour out of the way if we take that fork. By the time we get to the house, we'll have barely any sunlight left." Ricky had wedged himself up against the door, and his face was creased, but there wasn't any heat to his voice. He just sounded weary. He'd pulled one knee up to better stretch his other leg, and a hand resting on one thigh.

"Yeah, but it takes us past two motels and I don't want to sleep in the car tonight. We were already planning on spending the day at the house tomorrow anyway," Olivia argued, pushing her hair back from her face with both hands. One of her arms was pink where it'd been lying in the window while they drove.

Gabriel inhaled and turned his head to look outside, away from both of them.

The car was overly warm despite the fact that there was a cool breeze outside. They'd been driving since that morning with the late autumn sun beating down on them. The car smelled like light and leaves and a faint hint of sweat. One rest stop earlier to pick up food and now this one to stretch - and decide where they were going, apparently.

Flatly, at this point Gabriel was tired of talking about it. Three weeks of nudging from Rose, and then three days of Olivia and Ricky deciding to prod him about it together. If it was possible to icily show someone an empty long weekend on a calendar, Gabriel had done it.

The weekend had been a month away at the time. "I hope you don't think I'm just going to forget about this," Olivia had said, poking him in the chest.

"Gabriel?"

He glanced at the front seat without turning his head. They certainly hadn't forgotten. "Both of you are right," he said, ignoring Olivia's frown, "and I have already played tie-breaker twice today."

"You won both times." Ricky nudged Olivia with his knee, half-smiling. "It's my turn."

She sighed, but started the car.

***

The only remarkable thing about the house was the dust. Gabriel pulled one book off a shelf in a sitting room and sneezed half a dozen times, his vision going blurry. He put the book back without cracking open the cover.

Olivia paused behind him, close enough that if she had raised her hand, she could have settled it on his shoulder. Gabriel blinked once and wiped at his eyes. He let his hand rest over them. "I don't know what Rose expected us to find here," he said, mildly. "Hopefully nothing toxic."

Olivia laughed, and he relaxed slightly. "I don't know. How often do you find old abandoned houses still full of stuff?" she asked.

He felt her shift her weight back so she could look around the room. He kept studying the spines of the books in front of him. All thoroughly coated with dust. Enough light was coming through the windows that neither of them had their flashlights on, but the ceiling above them creaked as Ricky walked around the second floor, and the upstairs windows had all looked shuttered from the outside.

"I know you think this is silly," Olivia said, after a moment. Gabriel pressed a thumb to a book but didn't lift it. "I don't even know what I want to find. But if there's something…"

Silence fluttered between them, Olivia breathing, Gabriel holding still.

It went on a beat too long. "Maybe we'll find something silver and Ricky can pawn it for us," Olivia joked. Gabriel looked over his shoulder to half-smile at her. She half-smiled back and ran her eyes over the bookcase. "We could look for … diaries. I mean. If I was going to accuse my husband of being a fairy changeling, I'd have to work up to it."

There was nothing handwritten in the sitting room. The creaking from upstairs stopped by the time they stepped back into the hallway. Together, they clicked on their flashlights and headed up the stairs - it was much darker up here, only cracks of sunlight seeping in through the shutters.

Gabriel kept a step ahead of Olivia. He remembered her reaction to other old houses too well.

A small part of him was waiting for her to blurt out which one of them - Ricky or himself - had been the accused husband all those years ago.

It didn't come. They found Ricky holding a portrait in both hands and staring at a wall. Or rather, a wall safe. He looked over as they approached and raised both eyebrows at Gabriel, giving a silent nod to the safe.

"And what makes you think I can open this?"

"I'll buy us dinner if you can," Ricky said, smirking.

Gabriel stared at his mouth for a moment before jerking his eyes away. He kept his eyes on the safe as he approached it, all the better to avoid seeing whether Ricky was staring back at him. The safe was certainly old. It was coated in less dust, having had the portrait hanging on top, but the wall around it was discolored with age.

He sneezed again when he tested the tumblers. They still moved easily. Grimacing, he wiped the dust off with his sleeve. Olivia moved to stand next to Ricky. She held her flashlight to the safe. Gabriel hesitated before ducking his head just slightly.

"Do you not need, like, a stethoscope?" Olivia asked.

Ricky bumped his shoulder against hers. "Shh."

It took several minutes, with twist after twist and a few long moments of thinking, before Gabriel could nod to himself.

There was a startled noise at his right when he pulled the safe door open. "Okay," Ricky said, setting the portrait down on the floor. "I didn't actually think you were going to be able to open it."

"Your confidence in me is flattering," Gabriel said.

Most of what was in the safe was paper. There was a small box, which when he opened it had a necklace. Not very useful, but nice enough to hand over to Ricky, who was not busy holding a flashlight up to help them see. Ricky blinked at the jewelry and closed the box again. There were financial papers - not interesting - and a copy of a will. The only other thing Gabriel thought was worth handing over was a leather-bound book.

Olivia brought it in front of her flashlight. "Thanks."

"Seriously," Ricky said, shaking his head. "How did you-"

Gabriel waved him off. "When it was clear I was going to be forced on this trip," he said, ignoring Olivia's sputter, "I did some reading. It wasn't the wife's birthday, or the husband's, or their anniversary. But the date they bought the house worked."

"And I just went in an office before this and found it written down." Ricky sighed, grinning.

In the shadowy hallway Gabriel could tell Olivia was smiling, too, as she tucked the book under one arm so she could link the other with Ricky's. He turned his back to them to lead the way down the stairs. All he wanted was to get out of this dusty house and back to fresh air.

If they were lucky, Olivia would find the diary interesting enough not to want to come back. If they were very lucky, Gabriel would spot a steakhouse where Ricky could buy dinner.

He had already decided to take the driver's seat when he opened the front door. He put one foot over the threshold-

***

-and set it down just outside the rest stop.

For a second he wobbled, startled by the sudden sunlight even though it had been sunny all day. It had been. He remembered the sun in his eyes, the entire drive up here. He could see imprints in the gravel where he'd walked away from the car a few minutes earlier, and the mess of footsteps around the car as he neared it. Ricky and Olivia were already back. They'd claimed both front seats.

A glare on the windshield hid their faces from his view. He could tell that the two of them were bent over a map. Neither of them noticed his approach.

Gabriel was not used to sitting in the back seat. When he opened the door, he stared at it for a minute. His legs already ached like he was sitting back down. It wasn't until the map crinkled in the front seat that he realized he had been staring for too long.

"Are you okay?" Olivia asked, softly. Next to her, Ricky looked tired - weary - but had leaned forward to get a better look at him.

Gabriel shook himself and sat down. "Yes."

***

In the dusty sitting room, Gabriel let Olivia touch the books first. He walked around the room in a wide circle with the feeling that he was trying to stretch his legs. When Olivia suggested that they go find Ricky, he led the way upstairs, having to consciously tell himself not to walk too fast.

Something had gotten under his skin. The carpet was thick and only bore one set of footsteps, leading them straight down the hallway to Ricky, but Gabriel half expected to see three. When he looked up at the safe in the wall, it felt like there was a word he couldn't place on the tip of his tongue.

"Have you done this before?" Ricky asked, when he opened the safe on his second try.

The thing was, Gabriel had the sinking feeling that he had.

***

"Perhaps we should stay a little longer," Gabriel blurted.

Olivia and Ricky turned around. They had gotten ahead of him when he'd slowed on the stairs. He was still standing on the bottom step, unable to make himself go any further. The front door was shut tight. Past the first floor windows, it was dark out. They would need the headlights to drive out of here. One of them would have to read the map with a flashlight in the back seat.

Gabriel was … tired of sitting in the back seat. Which was as absurd as not wanting to take another step forward, because he hardly ever sat in the back.

He also did not want to be the one to open the front door. He stayed rooted to the bottom step across the room while Ricky reached forward and put his hand on the doorknob.

"Are you okay?" Ricky asked, pulling it open.

It felt like Gabriel tripped into his next step, through the door of the rest stop.

***

After losing track of how many times he'd found himself stepping through that door, out of the rest stop and into blinding sun, Gabriel turned on his heel and walked away from the car. He kept his back to it and knew that neither of them would see him, arguing over the map as they would be again.

He walked away from the little winding road that had lead them off the highway.

He walked through wild grass and trees scattered at odd intervals.

He walked until his legs hurt.

There was a horrific wrenching in his stomach when the sun set. It felt like someone twisting his guts around their hands and yanking.

He'd lifted his foot in the dark and set it back down just outside the rest stop door. His heart was beating so fast he couldn't swallow, and he had to brace himself against the wall. The stone was rough under his hand. He curled his fingers against it, and counted his breaths, and the dimples in the concrete.

When he could stand upright, he gingerly walked back to the car. Maybe it was time to try something different.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as he shut the door behind him, Gabriel cleared his throat.

Ricky and Olivia both looked up from the map. With both of them staring, he was tempted to say something innocuous. But he had let another Friday slip by while he thought about how to approach this, and his guts still felt bruised from trying to physically escape it.

Short of stealing the car and barreling back to Chicago before the sun set, he'd run out of ideas. He had to admit it: he needed help.

"This is not the first time we have done this," he started, then paused. "This is not the first time I have done this." Then he paused again, and sat back, resisting the urge to press his hand to his face. "This," he decided out loud, only as he said the words, "is going to sound insane."

At least they didn't laugh at him.

Olivia twisted in her seat so she could reach over and cover one of his hands with hers. Her hand was too hot. Gabriel stared at her nails, and closed his eyes when Ricky leaned forward to settle one hand on his shoulder. One of his fingers touched the bare skin above his collar.

Neither of them laughed, but Gabriel leaned back into his seat regardless, done with the heat of skin against his.

"It doesn't feel like a dream," Gabriel said. He kept his eyes on his own hands. He did not want to see what Olivia and Ricky were doing with theirs, freed from trying to comfort him. "But while the déjà vu is starting to wear on me, neither of you have mentioned feeling anything like it."

"You said that this happened after we went into the house."

Gabriel shrugged. "Yes."

Ricky rubbed a hand over his face. He looked at Olivia, who was biting her lower lip, and shook his head. "Have you ever tried looking at the book from the safe?" he asked. Then he held a hand up, before Gabriel could speak. "Or not handing me the necklace?"

For a second Gabriel didn't understand, and then he twisted his mouth in an unhappy grimace. "The first, yes. It was a diary. I haven't been able to find anything noteworthy. One of--" He stopped, and inhaled, pressing his hands flat against his legs. "We always open the door, and then it restarts. But nothing remotely suggesting time magic is in the first pages of the diary."

"I guess it could be the necklace," Ricky said. He didn't sound very confident. Gabriel tried not to let his stomach drop. "If you don't touch it at all this time…"

"What if we don't go to the house at all?" Olivia asked.

***

Gabriel fell to his hands and knees when he crossed through the rest stop door. Black spots swam in front of him. It seemed easier to sink down onto the concrete than lift his head when the distant sound of Olivia and Ricky's voices rose around him.

***

"Please don't suggest not going to the house," he said, grimly, before either of them could react. Olivia blinked and shook her head. "We've already tried it," Gabriel insisted. "I do not want to try again."

"But it must be the house, then," Olivia said. She reached out and took his hand in hers again before he could pull back. He went very still, and she squeezed fingers. "I'm sorry," she said. He lifted his head and was surprised to see that her eyes were damp at the corners. "I should never have talked us going on this trip."

"We'll fix it," Ricky said. He hesitated, and Gabriel watched with some surprise as he laid his hand over Olivia's and his own. "If it's -- It's the house. The house isn't that big. We'll figure it out, and we'll fix it."

Gabriel turned his hand slightly, so they both had fingers linked with his. He didn't say anything.

***

It was not the diary.

It was not the necklace.

It was not the front door (they tried going in, and leaving, through the back). It was not the cellar or the attic.

It was also not a dizzying hug with Olivia in the library or Ricky murmuring in his ear that he was sure they nearly had it, as Gabriel found himself walking outside into the sunlight on another uncountable try. Although the last two did make Gabriel feel considerably better, and was considerably harder not to dwell on the next two times, when he didn't get a hug at all and he ended up snapping at both of them for no good reason, storming through the door on his own, early, just to get that try over with.

When he stepped outside and the sun was still up, his feet hit the dirt outside the house, and not the rest stop.

He stood frozen even when Ricky stepped out behind him, snapping back, "That was a shitty thing to say."

Olivia stood behind him, framed in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest, her face as shadowed as the house. Both of them were completely missing how strange this was - to have gotten outside the house after entering it. He hadn't done that before. Of course they wouldn't notice, though. Gabriel was only giving highly abbreviated accountings of the repeats. It would take too much time otherwise. His pulse seemed to throb at his throat.

He turned very slowly, afraid that the scene was going to slip away from him. On the horizon the sun had only just begun to set. For the moment, he was still here.

"I…" he started, his voice trailing off before he could find another word.

"What?" Olivia was frustrated, stiff. Ricky had his fists clenched at his sides.

Gabriel looked back and forth between them. His stomach had been knotted for what felt like days at this point. It had sunk again and again, but now it seemed so far gone that he felt empty. Hollow. He had to wet his lips before he could speak again. "I'm sorry."

Overhead, the sky darkened.

"I'm sorry," he said, again. "I don't want this to be the time you remember - what I said - I did not mean…" He took a deep breath and shook his head.

"We aren't giving up on you," Olivia said. Her voice was tight.

Gabriel swallowed. "Please believe me when I say I do understand that you are trying to help me." At that moment, he thought he understood it more deeply than either of them, though he had the sense that would be an unwise thing to say. "I don't - I know you are not…"

"We'll fix it," Ricky said.

They were both staring at him, and Gabriel could barely breathe. He wanted to go back to Olivia hugging him and Ricky at his shoulder, a prospect which seemed to be too big to voice.

"If we can't," he fumbled. He ran a hand through his hair. Ricky and Olivia shared a glance, and Olivia stepped off the front step of the house. The light kept fading as the sun crept further down the horizon. "If we can't. Perhaps I should… Perhaps I should suggest, next time, that the two of you try to leave-"

Olivia's face flushed and she stormed forward, stopping just short of shoving against his chest with both hands, though she made the motion. "Shut the hell up, Gabriel. You don't accuse us of giving up on you, and then apologize, and then suggest that we do actually give up!"

He swallowed. "If this is localized," he tried, taking half a step back at the look that crossed Olivia's face. He tried not to move even further away when Ricky walked up to them. "I don't want you to be stuck here with me," he blurted.

"We're going to fix this," Ricky repeated.

The sun set.

***

Gabriel walked out of the rest stop with an impulse. It made his hands sweat to think about, but he couldn't shake the image of Olivia and Ricky staring at him so fixedly in the waning light.

But first, he gave himself a day of not doing anything. He let Friday run by uninterrupted without even trying to change anything. He played along, and said about the same things he thought he had said the first time. It was so familiar at this point that he didn't even have the energy to dread the sunset. He was tired, and on the first day, they had both smiled at him. For one more afternoon, that was enough.

It felt like something had loosened in his chest when he had apologized to them. Neither of them remembered to be mad at him, or to forgive him, but before they stepped into the house the next day he did something he couldn't remember doing in any of the hopelessly blurred Fridays that had come before this.

He reached out first.

Gabriel took both their hands in his. "Please don't look at me like that," he said. "I've had more time to come to terms with this than either of you."

Ricky shook his head. "'Come to terms with?' Really?" he asked.

Olivia just squeezed his hand, gently freeing herself from his grip, and wrapped her arm around Gabriel's waist. A second later, Ricky had an arm around his shoulders. For the space of a heartbeat he felt flushed, but then Ricky let go of him to open the door of the house, and his stomach dropped slightly. He braced himself and Olivia held on tighter as they stepped into the house together.

Nothing stood out. He hadn't realized it, but he'd gotten his hopes up. It took an enormous amount of effort to wave Ricky and Olivia off from things they had tried just a couple of days before, and to even remember whether they'd done something as obscure as check boxes under the guest bedroom.

If today was going to be different from every Friday before it, Gabriel would have to make it that way.

He excused himself from the upstairs bedroom abruptly. It was still a few minutes until sunset, and all he could think of doing was leaning against the side of the house and enjoying the last of the light. He left the front door open behind him.

"It's going to be okay," Olivia murmured. He looked over to see they'd both come outside. "There has to be something we're overlooking. Maybe it's…" She sighed, and stepped forward to take his hand in hers. Casually. Like it was natural. Gabriel stared at their fingers as she kept talking. "Maybe it's something to do with us, and not this place."

"So all we have to do is fix all of our own problems, and we'll be fine," Gabriel drawled.

Ricky snorted and leaned up against the wall at Gabriel's side. "Did we teach you how to make jokes on one of these days?"

Part of him considered suggesting that they burn the house down together. It seemed like the only thing left to try.

Except then Olivia kissed him, and Ricky buried his face in Gabriel's neck, and he realized they had gotten ahead of him again.

None of them noticed that full dark had fallen until after they came up for air. Gabriel could barely make out their faces, but it was the best thing he had seen in days.

**Author's Note:**

> Myrifique, I hope this was tropey enough to at least be amusing. Happy Ship Swap!


End file.
